CouncilmanRoberto Uranga greets the crowd at a grand -opening ceremony on Saturday for the Restoration of Willow Springs Park Wetlands. The Wetlands Restoration Project is a 12-acre project within the 48-acre Willow Springs Park. It features a walking loop that takes visitors through a series of water-capturing bioswales.
Long Beach October 21, 2017. Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG

Jared Milrad, a candidate for the City Council’s District 7 seat, who is in a runoff wit, set for June 5. (Courtesy)

In a race pitting experience against a fresh face, political bickering and accusations have ruled the day.

As Long Beach heads toward its June 5 general election, aligned with the statewide primary, the campaign between incumbent Roberto Uranga and upstart Jared Milrad to represent District 7, on the west side of the city, has been the most contentious among the three runoffs.

The 710 freeway expansion project, rent control, environmental policy and district improvement projects — such as street and sidewalk repairs — may be the biggest issues over which the two candidates have grappled. But those big-ticket items have largely taken a backseat to accusations of misrepresented resumes, absenteeism on the council, faked endorsements and being in the pocket of the oil industry, based on recent interviews with the candidates, and emails, press releases, mailers and fliers sent to constituents.

The truth of any of these claims is hard to pin down, but appears to lie somewhere in between.

“He is conducting a negative campaign,” Uranga said of Milrad. “It’s not about voting for him, it’s about voting against me.”

Said Milrad: “My opponent will do everything he can to mislead voters.”

THE CANDIDATES

Uranga is a District 7 stalwart.

He’s lived in the district for 35 years, worked for the city for 29 years and has served on several public agencies, including a 14-year stint on the Long Beach Community College District Board. He was elected to the City Council in 2014; his wife, Tonia Reyes Uranga also served two terms on council, until 2010.

Uranga, in an interview last week, said he is a progressive councilman in a famously progressive city, who has supported unions, worked to repair streets and sidewalks in his district, helped lure new businesses to the west side, and worked to make his neighborhood safer.

“There’s no question I have the experience,” Uranga said. “I’m the one who has lived in the community and I’m the one invested in the district.”

The councilman has received nearly $53,000 in contributions this year, as of April 21, according to campaign finance documents; in 2017, he brought in $59,000.

But he also spends a lot: In 2018, he has had $80,000 in expenditures — mostly for robocalls, consulting services and voter data (as well as reimbursing his wife’s consulting firm $528 for a food fundraiser) — leaving him with $16,640 in the bank; his officer-holder committee also has $24,000 on hand.

His donations have come from a diverse bloc of individuals, companies and political action committees, including contributions in the thousands from oil and gas firms, police and fire unions, and other labor groups.

Milrad, on the other hand, has lived in District 7 for a couple of years and has never held elected office. But he has seemingly been working toward a career in politics since college: He said he’s interned in the United States Senate and for former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, worked as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union’s Change that Works campaign, and did fundraising for former President Barack Obama.

He opposes the I-710 Corridor Project, wants to increase the amount of open space in District 7, and advocates for better access to affordable housing for lower and middle-income families.

He, like Uranga, says repairing streets and sidewalks is a priority.

“In our district, there is a sense of feeling forgotten,” Milrad said. “Our district wants change.”

He has raised $25,700 dollars this year, as of April 21, according to finance documents, and brought in just shy of $5,000 in all of 2017.

He has $3,550 in the bank, as of April 21. But he also has $6,200 in outstanding debts.

Most of Milrad’s contributions have come from individuals and a nonprofit called ActBlue, which helps progressive candidates and organizations connect with small-dollar donors.

His expenditures have been for political consultants and data-collection companies. He has also made several payments of $300 and $600 to Automac Parking, a consulting firm, for office space on East Wardlow Road.

Automac Parking’s chief financial officer is Timothy Aldrete, according to the California Secretary of State’s website. Aldrete has donated hundreds of dollars to Milrad, and the company itself has donated at least $400, based on financial documents.

710 MISUNDERSTANDING

In January, the City Council’s three-member I-710 Oversight Committee, for which Uranga is the chairman, unanimously recommended that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, known as Metro, approve Alternative 5C for the 710 freeway expansion.

The plan, ultimately approved by Metro a month later, would upgrade the freeway and eventually widen it to help decongest traffic.

But the plan is highly controversial, with opponents arguing that it would affect the quality of life of nearby residents and not really do much for congestion.

Milrad has pilloried Uranga for his yes vote, arguing that the councilman supports a plan that he said would dislocate more than 400 residents in the project’s path.

“Widening the freeway won’t get rid of congestion,” Milrad said. “We need to make sure we don’t displace people.”

Uranga, for his part, denies that Alternative 5C kicks people out of their homes.

“I voted for I-710 (project) without displacing families,” he said. “The plan I forwarded to Metro fixes the freeway so people can get in and out of Long Beach.”

But that can be misleading, because of how officials did the math, said Ernesto Chavez, Metro’s highway program director. The project as currently designed would relocate 109 residential units. To get to 436, officials multiplied 109 by four, the average number of people who live in residential units.

The bulk of the 109, Chavez added, is in the city of Commerce. And because Metro does not yet have the funding to widen the freeway, the agency’s Board of Directors directed staff to focus on smaller upgrades first and to decrease the number of units that will be relocated, Chavez said.

Any relocation of residents would be at least a decade off.

“The truth is somewhere in the middle,” Chavez said.

ATTENDANCE RECORD

Milrad has argued that Uranga is the second-most absent council member, behind Dee Andrews.

The incumbent said he ranks fourth in overall attendance.

Who is right, however, depends on which metric you use.

Uranga has missed eight council meetings in four years, which is fourth best among the nine council members.

But, Milrad said, the councilman has missed more than 260 votes, based on an analysis of council minutes by his campaign.

The City Clerk’s Office on Wednesday, May 16, confirmed that Uranga was marked absent for 215 votes, though that doesn’t include those where he was marked present for a meeting and then stepped away from the dais. During his tenure, the council cast 3,421 votes, said City Clerk Monique De La Garza, and Uranga has a 94 percent voting record.

“You can spin it anyway you want,” De La Garza said. “But when you put the number in context, it isn’t necessarily terrible.”

Uranga defended himself last week, saying Milrad’s campaign counted each item on the consent calendar — a bureaucratic term for items that need approval but are so routine they can be handled with a single vote — during his missed meetings to increase the number of times he didn’t vote.

The councilman also said that he only missed votes or entire meetings if he had to travel on city business the next day, adding that he often has to travel to Sacramento, Washington, D.C., or the various locations of California Coastal Commission meetings.

“I never missed any important votes,” Uranga said. “And I always cleared it with the city manager and the mayor.”

The Press-Telegram cross-referenced Milrad’s spreadsheet and documents from the the clerk’s office on Uranga’s voting record against the minutes for a selection of 14 council meetings between 2015 and 2017 where Uranga was either entirely absent or missed votes.

Milrad’s campaign, based on that selection, counted up the missed votes accurately and did not count consent calendar items separately, as Uranga claimed, but rather as a group. And nearly every vote Uranga missed during meetings he attended came toward the end of the agenda, as the proceedings stretched into the late evening and early morning.

Of those 14 meetings surveyed, 10 were on the eve of a Coastal Commission meeting, of which Uranga is an appointed member. Those meetings, scheduled typically in the morning, are held up-and-down the coast, from Newport Beach to San Luis Obispo.

And the votes he missed were largely uncontroversial: most of them were unanimous and on topics such as business permits to allow alcohol sales.

MILRAD’S RESUME

On May 8, a coalition of former District 7 candidates, who placed below Uranga and Milrad in the April primary, published a press release decrying the challenger for “making deceptive claims.”

Among those claims, they said, was promoting a fake endorsement from former candidate Oscar De La Cruz, who came in fourth during the primary.

“It has come to my attention that (Milrad) has misrepresented my intentions and claims I have endorsed him,” De La Cruz said in a statement. “Let me be clear, I have endorsed Councilman Uranga.”

Milrad, in an interview two weeks ago, said De La Cruz did endorse him — in front of a crowd at a Filipino rally.

Uranga’s supporters and campaign have also accused Milrad of misrepresenting himself as a lawyer and an entrepreneur.

Milrad is not registered as a lawyer by the California State Bar Association, or the other places he has lived. But, according to his campaign website, Milrad did earn a law degree from Northeastern University in Boston, and during his time there, provided free legal services to low-income transgender clients.

Milrad also founded A Show for Change, a production company that creates activist content for progressive, social causes. The company’s website has several projects listed, including “Marriage” and “Office Party,” both starring the council candidate.

But there are no records for a company named “A Show for Change” on the California Secretary of State’s website. Businesses must register there.

The Fair Political Practices Commission also has an open investigation into Milrad’s campaign finances and misleading voters, the agency’s spokesman, Jay Wierenga.

“In a desperate attempt to distract from Roberto Uranga’s failed record, our opponent’s allies filed a last-ditch complaint against our grassroots campaign,” Milrad’s campaign said in a statement, saying the allegations have legal and factual errors. “The establishment is terrified of change, which is why they’re using scare tactics to score political points in the 11th hour of the runoff election on June 5.”

Chris Haire covers Long Beach City Hall for the Press-Telegram. He previously was a general assignment reporter for the Orange County Register, covering everything from spot news to human-interest features. He has been with the Register and Southern California News Group since December 2012. He graduated with honors from the Columbia University School of Journalism, with a master's degree. Chris also has a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and would like, one day, to get a doctorate in history. (He's kind of nerdy.) He also loves Russian literature, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Solzhenitsyn.